House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer faulted Republicans on Tuesday for not advancing a Zika funding bill that can be supported by Democrats, and warned that the healthcare cost of children born with the virus tops out around $10 million each, according to government estimates.
“Every child that comes down with Zika … is a tragedy in and of itself, from a health standpoint, from the child’s standpoint. From an economic standpoint, [Centers for Disease and Prevention Control Director Tom Frieden] says the costs are probably in the neighborhood of somewhere around $10 million over that child’s life,” Hoyer told reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday. “Obviously, the moral, human consideration is first. There are more than 16,800 Americans that have contracted the virus; 1,600 pregnant women that have been affected; and 17 babies have been born in America with birth defects related to the Zika virus.”
Hoyer provided those statistics while faulting House Republicans for including “poison pill” language in the Zika bill. Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed to pass a $1.1 billion funding package that was lower than President Obama’s requested $1.9 billion, but provided more new funding than provided in the original House-passed proposal.
House Republicans accepted that bill, but added language barring the funding from going to Profamilias, a Planned Parenthood affiliate in Puerto Rico. Senate Democrats then filibustered the legislation, although Democrats also want to ensure new, emergency spending is used to fund the effort, and oppose the GOP plan to draw funds from other sources in the government.
Hoyer accused Republicans of focusing on politics rather than Zika and the pending fight over government funding. “The schedule this week, as usual, ignores the priorities of the day,” he said. “It’s a message week for the Republican base and it is another week squandered by the Republican leadership in the House.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has scheduled a third vote on the Zika funding bill, as lawmakers on both sides fight to blame their opponents for the failure to pass the bill.
“Especially in light of recent reports of locally transmitted cases of the virus now in Florida, Senate Democrats should stop their shameless political posturing and pass funding that has been previously approved by the House and Senate,” House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office said in a Tuesday message.
Hoyer said that Republicans deep-sixed their own Zika bill on purpose, by preventing the money from flowing to Profamilias, Planned Parenthood affiliate in Puerto Rico. “They passed it for their base and so they could say they passed a Zika bill,” he said. “They passed a Zika bill they knew wouldn’t pass.”
The House-passed Zika bill does include funding for other women’s health facilities, however. “[E]verywhere Profamilias lists a clinic — Arecibo, Caguas, Carolina, Isabela, Moca, Ponce and San Juan — has another type of facility that would have been eligible for additional funding to combat the spread of Zika,” Politifact noted in June.
